it s the top of the hour on cnn newsroom. i m alisyn camerota in new york. hurricane ian has killed at least 13 people. it s the strongest storm to hit the west coast of florida in nearly 20 years. local officials say we should brace for that number of victims to rise. the life and death danger from ian continues as it pushes northeast, still pummelling florida. rescuers were pulling people from high water all day and night. survivors describe no time to wait as people had to carry children, as you can see, through chest-high waters. ian made landfall just west of cape coral. our cnn drone shows the devastation there. i mean obviously you can just see these are supposed to be streets, but they are completely flooded. nearby ft. myers and naples further south are both decimated. countless neighborhoods are still submerged in the floodwaters at this hour. the communities of sanibel and pine island are now cut off from the mainland after ian washed away parts of this causewa
currently, they will work 24/7, until we get the lights back on again, as the governor said, not our first rodeo, but every storm is also different and always face different challenges. and i appreciate all of the support from the state, governor, thank you, and from local law enforcement as well, the national guard, and this is a team sport, and a team effort, and we re going to all work together until we get florida back up on our feet, and where we all want to be. thank you. and when fpl and the other companies have crews in, the extent to which that infrastructure has remained is critical, because you know, it is a lot easier for them to reconnect an existing system than have to rebuild it, so to see some of that thats was able to withstand a hurricane, it is also just a testament, i mean some of these folks, put money into the resiliency of the infrastructure. and this is like the ultimate test. when you ve got a hurricane that is a massive hurricane coming in at 155 m
coast of florida. 155-mile-per-hour wind speeds. that s just two miles short of a category 5 hurricane. it s expected to make landfall about 100 miles south of here in the port charlotte area. rain 12 to 24 inches across much of the florida peninsula, challenge create freshwater flooding. the impact of this will be felt by millions in florida. already 200,000 people without power. that s before the storm even makes landfall. this will uproot people s lives. its a life-threatening storm. this is the sunshine skyway bridge that we have pictures of. you can see the winds kicking up. it will have an enormous impact. let s go to chad myers first at the weather center. the 11:00 a.m. advisory out now. what do you see? still see the 155-mile-per-hour eyewall winds. inside the eye it could be down to 5 or 10 in the middle, but we re working our way onshore. the eye is not onshore. the eyewall is coming onshore. this is what it looks like from space, this is called the visible image
hearings, get your trial set for just $7 at harrys.com slash smooth wildlife we re going to mix up our own show smoothies look i m hosting so shark week. shark we posted by me, john sina starts sunday, july 7 and discovery it stream on max hello again, everyone. so much for joining me. i m fredricka whitfield and we re monitoring several new developments this afternoon on the campaign trail democratic national committee, it will soon have a call with members first this afternoon, something that was scheduled lay there yesterday. this as president biden and the first lady are attending what his team is calling a campaign me heating and it follows what biden admits was a weak performance at thursday s cnn presidential debate. cnn has also learned that democrats are conducting new polls polling amid growing calls for biden to end his reelection bid cnn s arlette saenz is following the latest from new york forests or arlette, what e-learning well fred there is a lot of discussi
Friday, April 19th, was one of the first beautiful, sunny days of the year for our area.With those warmer temperatures, some may be tempted to head out into the